VOY: “Alter Ego”

Date: October 22, 2020

Season 3, Episode 14

Musical Accompaniment: Red Hot Chili Peppers tonight

Interstellar News: Happy 22nd Day of Halloween! Was able to go out and get coffee with a friend today. We huddled in our cars, far away from everyone, and sighed about how no one else was wearing a mask. Le sigh indeed.

TL;DR: Voyager is investigating an inversion nebula that is behaving in an unexpected way. Kim has fallen in love with a holodeck character named Marayna and goes to Tuvok to try to purge his emotions. Tuvok finds Marayna intriguing and they become friendly, to which Kim completely blows up at. Voyager goes to leave the area but find they are unable because “Marayna” has taken over the ship, she has fallen in love with Tuvok. They identify a ship hidden in the nebula, Tuvok beams over and finds the real life Marayna who is tired of being alone. He convinces her to leave Voyager alone, returns to the ship, and apologizes to Kim for hurting his feelings.

Favorite Quote:

Tuvok: I am not aware of anyone on the ship with that name.

Kim: She’s not a member of the crew. She’s a character on the holodeck.

Tuvok: You’re in love with a computer subroutine?

Kim: That’s the problem.

Tuvok: Interesting.

Tuvok, the absolute master of understatement.

“To see through an emotional complex is to rob it of its power.”: So I thought this was going to be more like “Ship in a Bottle” or “Elementary, Dear Data” but it turned out to be a fun Delta Quadrant twist on that. Kim spends the whole episode realizing he’s not only predictable but there are no secrets on a ship stuck in space, and you can feel the pain of him having to grow up on the ship in full view of everyone. Now that they’ve been in the DQ for 3 years, you can see the seeds of people trying to pair off or at least secure themselves someone to love. Vorik and Paris sort of fight over Torres and it’s interesting how different the two men are but how the both seem to be attracted to Torres. Torres, on the other hand, doesn’t really seem to give a fuck about either of them… literally and figuratively. The part where the holo-characters attack Tuvok, Paris, and Torres was a little scary and quite well done. In the end, I feel bad for Marayna who found someone she never expected and was forced to take drastic measures to try and keep him. She totally went about it the wrong way, and Tuvok would have totally stayed if she was really going to hold the ship hostage, but I can understand finally figuring out what you really want, what was missing from your life that you didn’t know, and having it torn away from you before you can even figure out what it was. An overall pretty awesome episode, 7 really full burritos for this one.

TA Out!